Holder Begins Gun-Control Push

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photo credit: usdagovThe Justice Department is taking the first steps toward carrying out President Obama’s executive actions on gun control.

Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday released three proposals to strengthen the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which was one of the 23 actions ordered by Obama last week to tackle gun violence.

The proposed regulations would give local law-enforcement agencies access to the gun-sale database that is maintained by the FBI. The rules would also preserve records of denied weapons sales indefinitely.

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act already requires federal background checks for gun purchases, but not every firearm sale is covered under the law.

Currently, law enforcement agencies cannot perform a NICS check when transferring, returning or selling weapons that have been confiscated, seized or recovered. The new rules would change that, allowing officials to perform a background check on people who receive those weapons to ensure that they are permitted to own a gun.

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Social Security’s Disability Trust Fund Could Fail to Cover All Benefits Early as 2016

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photo credit: donkeyhoteyAs President Obama faces pressure on the left to defend federal entitlement programs from the benefit cuts that the Republicans say are necessary to keep the programs solvent decades down the road, one part of Social Security could fall short of paying out full benefits within a few years — even while Obama is still president.

Over the long term, Social Security and Medicare have promised tens of trillions of dollars more in benefits than the nation can pay for under current policies. But Social Security’s disability trust fund is in even worse shape, and current estimates say by 2016 it won’t have enough money to pay full benefits.

“That’s three years from now,” Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center said. “And given the president’s rhetoric and his posture, it’s quite clear that he has no intention of doing anything about it.”

The fiscal security of the disability trust fund got rapidly worse as the unemployment rate rose. The number of applications has almost doubled in the last 10 years, from 1.5 million a year in 2001 to more than 2.8 million a year in 2012.

Obama has said little about how he would fix the fund’s finances.

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Pictures of Enormously Successful 2013 March for Life

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Earlier today, Kathleen and I participated in the 40th March for Life in Washington, D.C. Although it was overcast and sometimes snowing, and the temperatures were well below freezing, there was a huge turnout. The numbers appeared to be in the hundreds of thousands.

Participants were optimistic, cheerful, and incredibly friendly.

Here are a few photos we took of the event:

White House Fly Upstages President’s Press Conference

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The buzzing insect stole the show as the President announced two new members of his second administration, cutting wild loops around the leader of the free world before landing squarely on his forehead.

The official White House transcript simply reads: “This guy is bothering me here – (swatting at a fly.)”

Meanwhile, the pool report which describes the President’s movements throughout the day noted that “the president spoke for about five minutes while being menaced by a house fly”.

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Lou Holtz After Obama’s Inauguration: ‘I’m Done, Finished, the Country’s Over With, We’re Not Doing This Again!’

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Former Notre Dame coach and ESPN commentator Lou Holtz has spent decades giving individuals pep talks, both on and off the football field. But the re-election of President Barack Obama caused the legendary coach to seek out someone else for inspiration: Speaker of the House John Boehner.

During an address to the Ripon Society on Tuesday, Boehner revealed that Holtz consulted him via text messages on Monday night following Obama’s inauguration.

“Last night, I got a three-page text from my good friend Lou Holtz, who must have watched the inaugural and then all that blabber on TV…: ‘I’m done, finished, the country’s over with — we’re not doing this again!,’” Boehner recounted.

The text was not the first time Holtz voiced pessimism about the president.

“Now, I had already had this conversation with Lou about nine or ten days after the election. He came in to speak to our 34 new members. And before he went over to talk to them, he came over to my office, and he was moaning and groaning,” Boehner said. “I said, ‘Lou, would you stop it? We’re Americans, we’ll figure this out!’ And I had to spend 15 minutes giving Lou Holtz a pep talk! I had to do it again last night!”

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Colin Powell Invited to See Obama Fraud Evidence

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Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has denounced Republicans for “birther nonsense” and described such concerns as “idiot presentations,” but now a law enforcement official who has reviewed the evidence regarding Barack Obama’s eligibility has invited Powell to see it for himself.

“I don’t know what Mr. Powell’s problem is,” said Michael Zullo, the lead investigator of the Cold Case Posse for Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz.

“I would open an invitation to him at my expense to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, and I will sit down with him and show him the evidence that we have accumulated that brings us to the only logical conclusion – that this document (Obama’s birth certificate) is manufactured.”

Zullo argued that “if it’s manufactured, the president of the United States at that point in time owes the American people at explanation.

“Tell us why. … It’s as simple as that.”

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Mississippi Bill Would Nullify Federal Laws

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photo credit: StuSeeger

JACKSON, Miss. – Mississippi defied the union during the Civil War and civil rights era, and at least two lawmakers think it is time to do so again.

Republican state Reps. Gary Chism and Jeff Smith, both of Columbus, filed a bill this month to form the Joint Legislative Committee on the Neutralization of Federal Laws.

Chism said Thursday that the tea party-backed measure is a response to President Barack Obama’s federal health care overhaul and proposals to curb gun violence.

“Certainly, the Obamacare started this,” Chism told The Associated Press, referring to the health care plan, “but then gun show loopholes that the president wanted after Newtown really put an exclamation on that — that we need to do something to stand up for the Tenth Amendment.”

The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says powers not specifically reserved for the federal government are reserved for the states.

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Democrats Assault on Second Amendment Begins

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WASHINGTON — California Democrat Dianne Feinstein begins her fourth full term as a U.S. senator much as she started her Senate career: fighting for a ban on assault weapons.

Feinstein’s new bill introduced Thursday proposes to:

•Ban the sale, transfer, importation or manufacturing of about 150 named firearms, plus certain rifles, handguns and shotguns fitted for detachable magazines and having at least one military characteristic.
•Strengthen the 1994 ban by moving from a two- to a one-characteristic test to determine what constitutes an assault weapon.
•Ban firearms with “thumbhole stocks” and “bullet buttons.”
•Ban the importation of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.
•Ban high-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.

The bill would grandfather in weapons legally owned on the day of enactment and exempts over 900 specific weapons “used for hunting or sporting purposes.”

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‘Communist Revolutionary’ Van Jones: Inaugural Address Proves Obama’s a ‘Communitarian’ (+audio)

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After President Obama’s second inaugural address, Van Jones, former Obama White House “green jobs” czar, praised the speech, calling it “Djobama Unchained” (after the controversial movie Django Unchained, about a freed slave taking revenge). On Wednesday night, during a lecture at Loyola University Chicago, I asked Jones what he meant. He explained that while President Obama is not a socialist, he is, in fact, a “communitarian.”

After a long recapping of the first four years of the Obama’s presidency, Jones elaborated: “It’s very interesting to see him now, actually, free.

Watching this man for four years, for everything he’s done to try to reach out to the other side, and frankly neglect his base, has just been called socialism, and just been called divisive, no matter what he does.

I was happy to see him unleashed and unchained and just be able to speak from his heart.

And what he said was, similar to what I’ve been saying, there is a “New Patriotism.”

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Deal With the Devil: GOP Establishment in Senate Joins Dems to Change Longstanding Filibuster Rules

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WASHINGTON – The tradition-laden Senate voted Thursday to modestly curb filibusters, using a bipartisan consensus rare in today’s hyper-partisan climate to make it a bit harder but not impossible for outnumbered senators to sink bills and nominations.

The rules changes would reduce yet not eliminate the number of times opponents — usually minority-party Republicans these days — can use filibusters, procedural tactics which can derail legislation and which can be stopped only by the votes of 60 of the 100 senators.

In return, the majority party — Democrats today — would have to allow two minority amendments on bills, a response to Republican complaints that Democrats often prevent them from offering any amendments at all. The new procedures also would limit the time spent debating some bills and nominations, allowing some to be completed in hours that could otherwise take a day or more.

The changes were broken into two pieces and approved by votes of 78-16 and 86-9. In both roll calls, Republican opponents were joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who usually sides with Democrats. Many of the GOP “no” votes came from tea party-backed senators like Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah; Rand Paul, R-Ky.; and Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

The two votes and a brief debate took less than an hour, impressively quick for the Senate. They came after a more typical day that featured a sprinkling of senators’ speeches and long periods when the Senate chamber idled with no one talking, while private negotiations off the floor nailed down final details.

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